Databases store information in a number of tables, records and fields. The information stored in a database may be accessed and manipulated in various ways. When accessing the information stored in a database, it may be temporarily stored in an associated data structure that provides convenient access to, and manipulation of, the individual records and/or fields. For example a record of a database may be retrieved an stored in a corresponding instance of an object that has members for each field of the record.
While storing data records, or portions of data records, in a data structure such as an instance of an object may be convenient for manipulation of the data records, there may be situations in which it is necessary or desirable to manipulate data records that are stored in a byte-addressable format.